Founding Animation Engineer

The Animation Engineer at Uthana is a critical role that bridges generative AI technology with 3D motion for animators. You will develop core technology used in shaping the future of 3D gaming and experiences, collaborating closely with our engineering team and founders to bring Uthana's vision of stunning, real-time characters to life. As an early team member, you'll have direct exposure to our go-to-market conversations and have an outsized impact on our roadmap, shaping the frontend architecture, and influencing product direction. What you will do Spearhead the journey from ingesting high-quality motion training data to delivering cutting-edge assets to AAA clients, making a direct impact on our innovative projects. Craft and refine powerful animation libraries that fuel our machine learning models, establishing yourself as a domain expert at the crossroads of 3D animation and ML technology both within and beyond Uthana. Supercharge our training, working closely with ML engineers to enhance 3D motion data pipelines for peak model performance. Implement groundbreaking techniques for processing, retargeting, and delivering motion, taking full ownership of the retargeting system to seamlessly support diverse skeletons and rigs across multiple engines. Support Uthana's clients by troubleshooting and innovating within our generative processes, empowering them to harness the full potential of our technology. Collaborate with frontend engineers to pioneer new methods of animating content in 3D web applications. What you bring to the table Experience: At least 5 years of software development experience in the game industry. Programming Skills: Strong proficiency in C++ and Python. 3D Math: Solid understanding of 3D math (linear algebra) including transform matrices, quaternions, and change of basis transformations and its application in animation systems. Animation Engineering: Proven track record of shipping animation gameplay systems and pipelines, state machines, anim graphs, and animation controllers. Technical Artistry: Keen eye for animation quality, knowledge of character animation systems, file formats (FBX, GLTF, USD, UAsset), blend trees, skeletons, motion capture, inverse kinematics, retargeting, skinning, and animation compression. Team Collaboration: Excellent communication skills and the ability to work effectively with both technical and non-technical team members. Problem-Solving: Strong problem-solving and debugging skills, with meticulous attention to detail. Nice to have: Experience working in Unity and/or Unreal; experience writing plug-ins for Maya, character rigging, or asset pipeline; experience as 3D Animator, rigger, and/or working with Motion Capture technologies; familiarity with physics-based animation techniques.

Uthana is an equal-opportunity employer that is committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state, or local laws. This policy applies to all employment practices within our organization, including hiring, recruiting, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, leave of absence, compensation, benefits, training, and apprenticeship. Uthana makes hiring decisions based solely on qualifications, merit, and business needs at the time. For more information, please contact us at careers@uthana.com